One Final Down, One to Go

Tonight I handed in my final assignment, an analysis of a public health campaign, and completed my final exam for my Social and Behavioral Science in Public Health course. The beauty of an online test is one's results are available immediately. I got a 95 percent (23 out of 24 questions correct). The analysis has to be reviewed by the professor, so I should get that back in a week or so.

Tomorrow night is epidemiology. I'm not as confident on that one. I used to be excellent at math and calculations. I was in accelerated courses in high school, got a 4.0 in physics in undergraduate studies, but now... ugh! Nothing seems to stick and I make really stupid mistakes in my calculations. The mind isn't as sharp when one is pushing 50 as it was when one was pushing 25!

Someone asked me the other day what the relevance was to a physical therapist studying public health? I now understand how to monitor diseases (which can include chronic diseases of aging like arthritis), evaluate effectiveness of treatments and interventions from a statistical point of view, how to create meaningful campaigns to reach target populations and how to advocate for populations in need.

The aging population is growing rapidly in the United States and the European Union. They are going to have needs unlike anything we've known before. Physical therapy has the opportunity to make a huge impact in meeting those needs. Someone has to be able to assess those needs, create programs to meet them, evaluate the impact of interventions, and advocate to ensure leaders are aware of the needs of this population and create policies to address them. I'm going to be one of those people.